


DVD Extras: Foam

by singingwithoutwords



Series: Foam [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Merpeople, Original Character Death(s), bby tony cameo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8014663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extra tidbits for my mermaid AU <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2623310/chapters/5851475">Foam on the Crest of the Waves</a>: will probably not make sense unless you read that first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DVD Extras: Foam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the story of how Tony's wavechild mama met his landwalker mama, and it's very sad, and I'm very sorry.

She was so tired.  Her wounds no longer bled, if she moved carefully to keep them from reopening, but they _hurt_ , deep pain that made her tail spasm and her arms shudder feebly around her little one.  She should let him go, let him swim, but couldn’t bear to.  Every moment could be her last, and though her entire body ached and her arms trembled with exhaustion, she wanted to hold her little.

It had been only days since he was born.  She knew, because her prison was open to the skies.  She had watched the sun climb and fall, the moon do likewise, four times since he’d been born.  The sun was at its peak now, and she knew she wouldn’t live to see the moon again.  She was dying, and there was no one to protect her little one when she was gone.  Her captor certainly wouldn’t.  That landwalker had no warmth to them at all.  Left to their care, the baby wouldn’t last a day.

Wood creaked in the area beyond her prison, drawing her weary attention.  Through the water and clear walls she could see another landwalker, smaller and rounder than her captor, wearing garments the color of polished seashells that left their long legs mostly bare.  She wondered what they wanted.  She wondered if she cared.

The landwalker watched for several long moments, walking slowly toward the prison on bare feet, until they reached the ladder her captor used when they wanted to prod at her.  The strange landwalker climbed up to the top of the ladder, then into the shallow end of the prison, which her captor had never done.  They stepped closer, slowly, like she was a frightened fish that needed to be coaxed into waiting claws, fabric soaking, floating, clinging to the roundness of their hips and showing the brown of their skin.  Their hands trailed lazy swirls across the top of the water, then under it.  Soft hands, delicate hands.  They made vocalizations that made no sense, almost too soft to be heard underwater, but nothing threatening.  Nothing hard.  And they watched with soft, warm eyes that trailed across her wounds and her little with sympathy and nothing more.

The landwalker moved closer, close enough to touch.  Their hand skimmed across her cheek, a barely-felt pressure.  She shuddered from something other than the pain and leaned into the touch with a vocalization of longing.

She was dying.  She hadn’t eaten in days, saving the edible bits of the slop intended to feed her for her little.  She would never see the ocean again, never be reunited with her nest.  She was dying, and the barest kindness of a landwalker was all she had to ease her through it.

She lifted her hand, tried to grab the landwalker’s.  They crouched, used their other hand to take hers, fingers still resting against her cheek while she keened softly.

There was a great deal of noise close by, but she didn’t look.  Didn’t take her eyes from the landwalker.  She heard her captor’s vocalizations, and the calm, firm reply of the landwalker with her.  She tugged weakly on the landwalker’s hand, trying to draw them closer.

She’d known only this one kindness in her captivity, and she had to trust in it.  She had to believe at least this one landwalker could be trusted.

The landwalker, by some miracle, seemed to understand.  They moved closer, slowly reaching for her little, lifting him gently when she didn’t resist, shifting until he was pressed close against them in the safety of their arm, still well below the air line.

Then, because they were kind, because they knew compassion, they found her hand again.  She curled her fingers around theirs and closed her eyes.  She was tired.  So very tired.  She clung to the landwalker, oblivious to the noise and activity beyond her prison.  It didn’t matter anymore.

With a warm hand in hers and the brush of cloth like translucent fins against her knuckles, she finally let herself rest.


End file.
